Company
Rock Paper Scissors
Rock Paper Scissors, as described on the show by Dmitri Vietze.
Episodes (1)
Dmitri Vietze, founder of Rock Paper Scissors and the Music Tectonics Conference, explains why music tech startups struggle to attract investors.
Questions these episodes answer
Why do most music tech startups struggle to attract investors?
Dmitri Vietze says many founders build great ideas without a viable business behind them because they come to music through passion rather than commercial realism. He also points to music's smaller addressable market compared with adjacent industries like gaming or fintech, made worse by early VC losses that left investors wary of the space.
From: Mastering the Art of Innovative Storytelling in Music Tech PR
What is Dmitri Vietze's advice for testing a music tech idea before raising money?
Vietze suggests testing a concept in an adjacent vertical such as sports, medical or advertising first, proving it works there, then bringing it back into music. He says backers are often more willing to fund an idea in music once it has already been demonstrated to work somewhere else.
From: Mastering the Art of Innovative Storytelling in Music Tech PR
How did Dmitri Vietze start the Music Tectonics Conference and how has it grown?
Vietze noticed Los Angeles had streaming services, record labels, gaming and social media companies clustering there but no dedicated music tech event, so Rock Paper Scissors launched the Music Tectonics podcast first to build an audience, then started the conference. It drew over 400 attendees and was cashflow positive in its first year, growing to almost 600 attendees last year.
From: Mastering the Art of Innovative Storytelling in Music Tech PR
Why does the Music Tectonics Conference include investors and labels alongside startup founders?
Vietze deliberately built the event around executives, decision makers and investors alongside founders, because he has seen conferences that attract only founders eventually lose the decision makers whose presence makes attending worthwhile for everyone else.
From: Mastering the Art of Innovative Storytelling in Music Tech PR
What music tech trends does Dmitri Vietze expect to grow next?
He points to tools that let people without musical training create music, much like phones turned everyone into a photographer, plus new fandom features that make streaming more social and interactive experiences in augmented and virtual reality, an area he thinks Apple is better positioned to get right than Facebook was.
From: Mastering the Art of Innovative Storytelling in Music Tech PR